Belleville

Belleville sits just twenty minutes from downtown St. Louis but feels entirely like its own place — a town settled heavily by German immigrants in the mid-1800s, whose civic ambition is written across the skyline in the form of the Cathedral of St. Peter, a twin-spired Gothic Revival building that looks transplanted from a much larger European city. Lia, who grew up near cathedrals like it in France, said it was the first one in America that actually made her stop and stare.

Main Street and the Cathedral of St. Peter

We circled the cathedral twice before going in, admiring the brickwork, then wandered Main Street’s mix of German bakeries, antique shops, and a genuinely excellent bookstore that had somehow survived every wave of retail collapse around it. Belleville’s German heritage shows up in small, persistent ways — a bratwurst stand that’s been in the same family for four generations, a Christkindlmarkt every December that draws people from across the metro area, street names that still carry their old-country spelling.

Eckert’s Orchards and the fall harvest

On the edge of town, Eckert’s Country Store and Farms has been growing apples since 1910 and has grown into one of the largest pick-your-own orchards in the country. We arrived meaning to buy a bag of apples and left three hours later, having picked our own, drunk fresh cider, and eaten a cider doughnut still warm from the fryer while Lia argued that Illinois apples were better than anything she’d had in Normandy — a claim I’m still not sure I believe, but I didn’t argue too hard with a doughnut in my hand.

Getting There

Belleville is a straightforward twenty-minute drive from St. Louis Lambert International Airport across the Mississippi River via I-64. A car is essential for reaching Eckert’s Orchards and the surrounding countryside, though downtown Belleville itself is walkable.